“WHADDA YA MEAN BY THAT!!”
BY TOM BRENNAN
What is the exclamation point doing at the end of the title if it is a question? Well, this is the fire service, and we don`t follow those grammar rules! Over the years, I have met many of you at conventions and other gatherings. Usually, one or two of you “hit” me with that introduction as a challenge, not so much as a question. I want to expound on those statements for these next few columns.
“We got a truck and an engine in our house. The engine company always responds first. Whadda ya think?”
Well, the “always” word should have been a tip-off. There are almost no “always” in this structural part of the fire service. At structural fire response, the rule of order in leaving the firehouse depends on how large the department is. If apparatus respond from more than one firehouse, the answer is: It depends on what order the engine company (associated with the truck company) is assigned to arrive at the location of the reported fire. Truck position is everything on the structural fireground–meaning either you have it or you don`t have it. If not, you have just wasted a half million dollar piece of equipment.
If the poor position is a matter of choice by the driver/officer combination, then you accept the admonition and change it in practice, drills, and critiques. However, if the reason is that apparatus other than the first pumping engine have arrived and parked, it is a disgrace. The “rule” for response from multiunit quarters (if you want one) is the same: If the engine company is assigned to be the first to arrive at a reported structural fire, it must leave the house first! If the engine company is not assigned to arrive first, the truck goes first, no matter what its assignment is. Simple? E-mail me on this one: tfb111@aol.com.
“We had a four-story multiple dwelling with fire on the second-floor rear apartment. I knew we had more fire than we `wanted` behind the door. What precautions can we take while waiting for water and the door to be forced?”
First, how can you tell that the condition behind the door may be greater than “normal”? If you read ” the books,” they tell you to touch some part of the door. Nuts! That is like seeing if the pot is hot by grabbing it! You are experienced. You have the nozzle. If the door is “cooking” with blisters on the upper quarter, there is more flame than you usually deal with inside. Tactical preparation and communication and timing are important here.
The forcible entry team needs to account for the method of forcing the hinged door. The door should fail in the slowest and most controllable manner possible, and that means using through-the-lock entry techniques and opening the lock and then the door. If conventional forcing is used, the slow prying fork of the halligan should be used rather than the explosive failure that accompanies the adz method of prying.
Additionally, someone should affix a door-control device to the knob of the fire door. Use a simple loop of rope or clamp a vise grip with chain or rope attached. One member at the door simply stands or kneels on the rope, restricting the door from opening any more than a few inches. If the condition is so severe that the members are driven from the opening, just tug on the rope or chain, shut (not lock) the door, and regroup.
Communication is also urgently necessary here–and that is two-way communication! Remember, you have a rear apartment fire with at least four more on the hallways above the fire door. Your team members must have passed you to get there while you were waiting for water. Ensure that they are “in the know” about the iffy condition you have at the fire floor. Before actually forcing the door, ensure that they are down from above or that they have forced themselves into an area of refuge above the fire. That would be an open front apartment (the best–remember the floor-above-the-fire articles?). Notify command of the situation also. Many things may be going on around the outside of the structure and may need coordination before you let your blast furnace free.
Another member who needs to know what is happening at the fire door in the hallway is the outside entry person (or team). As you open that door and start water, you will create a difference in the direction of the flame spread and ventilation conditions and the survivability of human beings in the rooms behind the fire that have the horizontal ventilation windows mounted in their walls. The outside entry team (which may have entered the structure) from that rear, exterior entry position, needs to make an exit to safety or find refuge before you open this overheated door and begin your fire attack.
More coordination than ever is needed between the forcible entry/search team and the nozzle team. The door must remain intact until water is started, the line is bled of air, and water is at the nozzle. You may have to fight for every inch that the door opens. Remember, you cannot lose control of the fire floor! You must hold it with the nozzle attack or use it as a “damper” with the control device for those above the fire–whether it is for civilian evacuation or firefighters` search efforts. Either the handline is sufficient and you hold, or you close the door! Another simple rule.
“We got a tall building in our district. It has a standpipe system and a separate sprinkler system. If we have a fire above the fourth floor, we use the standpipe connections for supply of handline operations. Which fire department connection at the street location should our pump operator supply first?”
Rather than another rule, let`s analyze the problem. A sprinkler system with its own siamese supply connection is almost always required by law and has a primary water supply built in to supply a percentage of sprinkler system heads dependent on occupancy hazard (among other things). Standpipe systems may or may not have a water supply independent of the fire department connection. The sprinkler system record is almost perfect at controlling the situation with less than a few heads fusing. The system that needs adequate water supply is the hoseline team! Supply the standpipe fire department connection with the first supply line and start a constant water source–then supply the sprinkler with one of the first few supply lines! More next month. n
